My Mother-in-law uses paper napkins. She is very diligent when it comes to napkins. There is always a napkin holder full of paper napkins on the table. They are often seasonally themed, flowers in the the spring and summer, turkeys and pumpkins in the fall and snowmen in the winter. Napkins are laid at every place setting at every meal, there is no excuse for untidy eating at her table.
This is all very commendable and hardly warrants a blog post except for the fact that I feel very strongly about napkins, to be precise I feel very strongly about paper napkins.
I find them to be trashy.
Paper napkins make sense at a large event or in a fast food bag but otherwise I think that they should be stuffed into the glove box to be used in emergencies only.
It is odd that I have such an aversion to paper napkins. It is not as though we were too fine for paper napkins in home where I was raised, in fact we didn't even use napkins. We didn't use anything save the backs of our hands! If a meal was particularly messy or involved very sticky finger foods someone was dispatched to the kitchen mid-meal for a handful of paper towels or even a damp paper towel. Table manners were not exactly the highest priority.
And thus we see that my views on disposable napkins are: Irrational? Hypocritical? Yes.
I have decided to take a stand on the subject of napkins and for several years I have been adding to a collection of cloth napkins. I even have some handmade napkins which are very painful to make as the steam from the iron burns my fingers as I press those tiny little hems. I have a set of silver napkin rings and a handy little drawer in the side of the dinner table in which to store my collection of napkins.
And that is where the napkins stay as we eat our meals, sans napkins, every day, just as I was raised.
This is all very commendable and hardly warrants a blog post except for the fact that I feel very strongly about napkins, to be precise I feel very strongly about paper napkins.
I find them to be trashy.
Paper napkins make sense at a large event or in a fast food bag but otherwise I think that they should be stuffed into the glove box to be used in emergencies only.
It is odd that I have such an aversion to paper napkins. It is not as though we were too fine for paper napkins in home where I was raised, in fact we didn't even use napkins. We didn't use anything save the backs of our hands! If a meal was particularly messy or involved very sticky finger foods someone was dispatched to the kitchen mid-meal for a handful of paper towels or even a damp paper towel. Table manners were not exactly the highest priority.
And thus we see that my views on disposable napkins are: Irrational? Hypocritical? Yes.
I have decided to take a stand on the subject of napkins and for several years I have been adding to a collection of cloth napkins. I even have some handmade napkins which are very painful to make as the steam from the iron burns my fingers as I press those tiny little hems. I have a set of silver napkin rings and a handy little drawer in the side of the dinner table in which to store my collection of napkins.
And that is where the napkins stay as we eat our meals, sans napkins, every day, just as I was raised.
4 comments:
we use a wet (damp) washcloth. Paper napkins dont' do a very good job anyway, bring me a washcloth!!
LOL
I too abhor paper napkins... however I have handmade cloth napkins that I didn't spend much time on- a good serged rolled hem did the trick on them!
If only I HAD a serger.
I have been working on getting a supply of placemats so that maybe I won't have to scrub the table so hard at the end of every day. The boys, all of them, seem to spill a lot around their cereal bowls or plates.
Like Kylene's family growing up, though, we never use napkins.
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